If you win the election, then you change the law, lah

With the old MACC investigation on Azmin Ali surfacing again, we see the most revealing squirms coming from the quarters that are campaigning most ferociously for Pakatan Rakyat.

Now what’s interesting about this squirming is the visible shifting in positions, or if you want another word, ‘Change’.

Haris Ibrahim blogs that he agrees with Raja Petra Kamarudin (who allegedly has just been handed the Azmin files) on how the campaign for the imminent election must now take the shape of Anything But Corruption — ABC.

Before this, it was ABB that Haris had been advocating, i.e. Anything But BN.

The original and most widely known acronym of the MCLM (more on this RPK-Haris initiated movement later) cleansing project is ABU or Anything But Umno.

Thus the change in Haris’ ideological target has been from ABU (the ‘devil’) to ABB (devil’s little helpers included) to ABC with Haris eyeing MACC chief Abu Kassim Mohamed’s job.

Plan C, Anything But Corruption (ABC), after jettisoning Plan B (ABB) segueing from the diluted focus of Plan A (ABU) is indeed a hop-skip-and-jump “change”. Strange huh that it is BN only that is always accused of frogging.

It’s no wonder then that among the three Pakatan parties, Haris evinces the closest affinity with DAP whose own slogan is ‘Jom Ubah’ (more on this too, later).

‘Righteousness exalts a nation’

If Haris seems unable to make up his mind, the DAPsters are even more mind-boggling.

They approach an argument using the most astounding ‘logic’. Instead of invoking facts to bolster their case, DAPsterism demands for any truth of the matter to be settled in the court of public opinion.

The DAPster challenge goes like this:

If you’re a politician – say one from MCA or Gerakan – and you disagree with Dear Leader, you will be asked to prove the rightness of your opinion by contesting against their “Beloved Chief Minister” in the next election.

If you lose against him in Bagan (Guan Eng’s parliament seat) or Air Puteh, his Penang state seat, it will go to show that DAP is on the side of right. The voice of the people have spoken.

This method makes for the truth or falsity of any dispute something to be determined by one’s popularity at the ballot box … on DAP turf.

Truth, in DAPspeak, is hence not something inherent in the nature of the facts themselves.

However if you’re not a politician but a layman, DAPsters will dare you to put your critique to the test by standing for election instead against a DAP candidate in a DAP constituency.

Thus if you wish to criticize their politics, you will be forced by them to validate your criticism by stepping into the political fray yourself.

If you, as a DAP critic, lose your deposit against their man in the coming election, the DAPsters will gleefully declare, “See you’re rejected by the people. Therefore all that you say must be a pack of lies”.

Ex-ISA detainee, P. Uthayakumar of Hindraf, is one of the rare individuals willing to meet them (the objects of his criticism, i.e. the federal opposition) head-on in the polls.

Back to MCLM and the RPK-Haris connection to this posting. The Malaysian Civil Liberties Movement was launched in London on 30 Oct 2010 with Raja Petra as MCLM chairman and Haris as its president.

Someone who was in the MCLM inner circles had rung me up at around the time that the Integrity “vetting” process was being carried out by the movement on Third Force candidates. The first name that came to my mind and which I proposed to MCLM (via my telephone caller) was P. Uthayakumar.

Unfortunately Uthaya is not Haris’ cup of tea as Haris believes that Uthaya is a “communalist”.

For Haris, the ideal candidate is Hannah Yeoh, a non-communalist and a non-racist.

In fact, shortly after its launch on 22 Nov 2010, MCLM hosted Hannah – dubbed “excellent candidate material” – in a London forum to talk about youth leaders in Malaysian politics.

The federal opposition demands for this and that to be ‘changed’. To get the change they want, they need to take control of the legislative assembly, which is Parliament.

Thus a majority of their candidates will have to be elected as the supreme lawmakers of the land.

At one time, MCLM was touting itself as the self-appointed vetting agency to screen the integrity of potential Pakatan-friendly or ‘third force’ candidates.